What a year we have had! As I write this post I am holding the most beautiful baby in my arms. She is definetly the best gift I could have gotten for Christmas & I can't possibly explain what a joy it was spending her first Christmas with her. She is quickly beginning to show her own personality which is so much fun to see....she has the magnetic personality of her dads and the stubborn pout of her mom together they can be a leathal combo and both Mark & I are preparing for a life without the word 'No' in our vocab.
I am getting closer and closer to going back to work which makes me sad because I am going to miss out on so much of her firsts. I am half expecting the daycare to call us shortly after she starts going to tell us she is too high maintenance and they can't watch her so I will be forced to stay home :) She can be quite a handful but it is so worth the price. I can't imagine life without our little precious and can no longer remember what its like to not be a mom.......you never think that your life can literally change overnight but it does and when that happens it is the most wonderful event you could ever imagine. Being a mom is amazing, it is also the toughest job out there so I now have a new appreciation for all of those who care for children.
I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful holiday season and is as fortunate as Mark & I have been this year. Thank you all for being so involved in our lives and for helping us out so much this year. We love you all.
Jaime

It's official Today's top news story "Gerber baby loses cutest baby in the universe competion to previously unknown angel McKenna Gwen Beadnell." Her prize is an endless supply of diaper changes and a lovely convertible crib complete with all the amenities a 0 year old may require.
I am having more fun with her as each day progresses and continue to be amazed with every thing she does. December 18th was her first official "non gas" smile and for the last three weeks she has been gloriously holding her head up on her own. Mark & I are getting pretty good at figuring out what she wants and although she still maintains her right to a quality temper tantrum, they are becoming fewer and farther between. It's amazing to me how routine she has become in her habits already, she wakes up within 5 minutes of her feeding times almost every time now <-not forgetting to wake me as well, isn't that sweet?! Around 9:30 am and 1:30pm every day we turn on Ray Charles and dance which she also reminds me of. Ray Charles and Brad Paisley calm her right down and I recommend to any having children in the future to find a few favorite musicians and listen to them the last few months of your pregnancy....your baby will be familiar with them like McKenna is. I plan on writing to Brad Paisleys fan club soon to thank him for all the times he saved us from impending cry fests. With McKennas first Christmas just around the corner Mark and I have been busy shopping and cleaning up. It's nice the first year of her life because I can buy her all practical stuff as she won't know the difference, this will be the first and last year I can do that I'm sure. It seems to be a theme this year of practical gifts because as a gift for our house Mark & I got a new improved whirlpool duet dryer, that's right eat your hearts out ladies it can dry plastic (including plastic tableclothes) and has a wrinkle guard so clothes never wrinkle. Since it can do 24 towels or 16 pairs of jeans at a time I plan on letting my laundry pile to the ceiling so I can baske in my squalor before I wipe it away. Let this be your warning if you plan on visiting. :) This year we got a frasier fir tree and we will soon post pics on our website of McKenna in front of it. It's pretty but already very very dead. Can't win em all. Well, to all who read this, Merry Christmas and New Year.

Jaime and I went to see Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe last Sunday while Jeni babysat for us. It was kinda weird the both of us being without McKenna for the first time. I was looking around the whole thinking there was something I should be doing. I had my cell on vibrate in my pocket with my hand on it the whole time making sure I didn't miss that "urgent" call.

The movie was great. The CGI animals were pretty realistic (one of the things that I was hesitant about), especially Aslan the main Lion, voiced by Liam Neeson. It's amazing what they can do nowadays. The story, if you don't know, has some fairly obvious religious undertones which coincide nicely with the Christmas season. It's certainly worthy of a theatre experience with the surround sound and so forth. I'd give it 4-1/4 out of 5 diapers.


We bought a little Christmas tree (5') on Saturday as well and I put up the Christmas lights around the house. We actually had snow on the ground for awhile, but now it's just really cold (for Seattle anyway, it's been below 32 at night and in the mid 40's during the day) I've almost got my Christmas shopping done although that doesn't account for much because I'm only getting stuff for Jaime & McKenna this year (sorry everyone else). Jaime has pretty much been done since July. We had wrapped presents all over the house for awhile now.

I finally finished the last math class that I have to take for my degree last week as well. I completely bombed the final but still managed to pull a 3.9 out of the class. Which leaves me with a 3.88 overall and still in the Phi Theta Kappa thing (which I pretty much just joined up for the plaque). I'm taking this quarter off to adjust to parenthood but plan to slowly get back into things in the near future.

Until Next Time,

Happy Holidays! from The Beadnell's.

We gave McKenna another bath last night.
She is just the most precious thing you've ever seen, ok...so I'm a little biased.
I posted some new pictures on our nellnell.com website. We almost lost her in a poker bet on Thanksgiving night, but luckily I won her back a little later on... More later on....Hope all is well!

So as you can see, I'm trying out some advertisements on this blog and also on my main website. I've already made a few bucks, and it's really easy to do. Please let me know when I've gone too far, I'll try not to over do it. But listen to this.....If someone signs up for NetFlix from the Ad on my sites, I get $9.00. The google ad under the netflix banner pays a couple buck per 1000 clicks and the ExpoActive ads on the right side pay out at $.05 per click! And then there is the Mozilla FireFox download, which pays $1.00 if someone downloads it through my site and starts up the Firefox browser. Also, if you have a website and want to advertise through google on it, you can sign up for Google AdSense through the very bottom link and when you make your first $100, they send me $100. All of these only pay out on unique IP Address clicks, so it's no use clicking multiple times to try and make me rich (although I appreciate the thought). How easy
Actually, I highly recommend both Netflix and Firefox. I use both very frequently.

In addition to the advertisements, I'm starting my own online store. Selling TShirts, Mugs, and so forth. I'm still working on the logos and pictures that are going to be on the stuff, so give me a week or so before you start buying tons of stuff! :) Should be fun to get Shirts and stuff made with McKenna on them or any other kind of silly stuff. If you have a design in mind, let me know and I'll add it to the store!

Thanksgiving was nice. It was Jaime, McKenna, myself and Jaime's Mom, Dad and Sister for dinner. Jaime had been cooking misc things throughout the week and then Jeni (Jaime's sister) came over to help with the turkey on Thanksgiving morning. We played poker after the food and Jeni's boyfriend Brian joined us. Lots of fun.
We actually went out shopping on Black Friday too, got up around 4 and went to the Fred Meyer sock sale and to the mall. It didn't really pan out too good though. It's hard to shop without any money! :)

On another, I love being a dad. It's just so fun to sit with her laying against my chest and to watch her little face scrunch up or smile or grimace while she sleeps. It makes all of the crying and poopy diapers worth it. I feel bad for Jaime now because when I come home from work sometimes she looks exhausted having been up with McKenna for most of the night and what not. (As I'm sleeping in another room during the work week).
I can't believe it's already been over a month! We got professional pictures taken with the three of us the other week. They turned out pretty good for the most part (if you take me out of them)



Besides that, on the movie front it's been pretty lackadaisical. I watched Murderball, which gets a 4 diaper rating. It was really interesting and gave me a different point of view on situations life throws at you. The Devils Rejects gets a 2 diaper rating. Pretty lame. Certainly not a kids movie or for those that don't like stupid horror/camp movies. It's the 2nd movie from Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses was his first). Melinda and Melinda was an ok movie, a 2-1/3 diaper rating. I'm not a huge Woody Allen buff, and this plays like a semi typical Allen movie. Jaime and I have gotten hooked on another TV show as well, this time via Netflix. We thought we'd give Nip/Tuck (the first season) a try and really like it. It's not for the children but is pretty good TV, for that late night, drama type show; 4 diapers.
Jaime and I are hoping to go on a date this weekend if we can find a babysitter....Narnia comes out on Fri and we have been looking forward to seeing it for awhile. If you know our infatuation with the Lord of the Rings movies (I collect the swords and some memorabilia), J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis were friends and were in the same writers club in their youth. They shared ideas and often reviewed each other's ideas and stories. It should be a good movie.

Other than that, Have a great Holiday Season! And be Safe!
Happy Holidays,
Mark, Jaime, McKenna, Monster and Dakota.